Pirates of the Caribbean: A New Beginning
by celticleopardess
Summary: Orphaned girl Margaret Blackcrowe sets out on a mission to find her real father, who turns out to be none other than Captain Jack Sparrow. With the help of Elizabeth, Will, and their son, Jack, the fatherdaughter pirate team set off to recapture the Pearl
1. Margaret's Diary

**Disclaimer: I do not own the Pirates franchise or the characters of Jack Sparrow, Elizabeth Swann, Will Turner, Mr. Gibbs, Scarlett (but I do own her last name) yada yada yada.**

**A/N: Hope you all like this. R&R!!!  
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July 11, 1796 

After six days at sea I am thoroughly sick of water. I never thought it would happen. I have always loved the ocean, even when I was a little girl and Father did all he could to keep me away from the beach. My mother drowned when she was playing in the spray with me as a child. And father died just a year before I went off to sea in this moldy bucket. He would be ashamed of how I act now, wearing breeches and walking on deck in plain sight of all the men. But I want adventure. And it is very difficult to have adventures in petticoats and corsets.  
The captain says we shall reach Tortuga any day now. Maybe there I will find an adventure. Before he died, my father had written me a letter to be opened posthumously. It informed me that I was a foundling, left on my "parents'" doorstep in a crusty half of a wine cask with sail material wrapped around me in a crude attempt at swaddling. The cask was marked "Product of Tortuga". Going on this knowledge, I immediately decided to set off to sea in the company of my butler, Rolf. I would not be surprised if I was the illegitimate offspring of some white-bearded seaman or fiendish pirate. I have always liked the feel of coins between my fingers and the salt sea in my hair; I have always had that fierce sense of independence particular to pirates and Spanish guerillas.  
I have changed my last name so I cannot be connected with my noble surrogate father's family and bring dishonor down upon his house. Now that I know that I am not actually my father's child, I can swash and buckle all I please without feeling any remorse--just how a cold-blooded pirate queen should be.

Sincerely, my dear diary,  
Margaret Blackcrowe

Same day, later

I am not so keen on being a pirate after having tasted their food. If I ever get my own ship, firstly, it shall be all women. Secondly, we shall have a very good cook.  
I can see the fires of Tortuga flickering in the distance, probably only about 10 miles away. The scent of liquor, which was only a whiff of rum when we were in open seas, now becomes stronger, and the rum mingles with brandy, port, and wine. Faint songs that sound terribly bawdy and rude can be heard, and the usually silent crewmen hum along with smirks on their faces, not daring to speak the offensive lyrics for fear of having to swab the deck two extra times for speaking so with a lady on board.

Same day, Seven o'clock

After embarking from the ship, one hears whistles and catcalls from all around, which continue as one walks through the streets. I feel as if I am in the midst of a cage of very dirty, colorful birds with all the whistling and singing. I took a room at a tiny, grubby inn where the food is only marginally better than that on board. The innkeeper, a Madame Hapney, is a bit vulgar and winks at Rolf and sniffs at me. In all her lascivious finery she cannot hope to have the same freedom I am given. Her father lives in the basement and demands work from her most of the day and night, bringing him food, salves for the boils on his legs and feet, and money the Madame pilfers from the pockets of the honest sailors who stumble upon Tortuga's defenestrated soil.  
I do not talk much with Rolf because he is not very interesting. He used to be more talkative until I came up with the scheme to trace my probably piratical roots and insisted, reluctantly, on coming with me. Most of the clothes he had packed were dresses, but I packed them away again when he tried to put them in the bureau by my bed, all except for the best two, one of which is a ball gown and one of which is the absurdly ornate and heavy wedding dress Father had made for my trousseau, much too hot for this Caribbean weather. "Tomorrow," I said commandingly to Rolf, "I shall go and see if I can find some good stout linen to make into trousers."  
The poor boy fainted right then and there. I had to revive him with the Eau De Cologne he keeps in his right breast pocket.

July 12, 1796  
Evening

I have gone into almost every bloody tavern in town and found nothing so far. Perhaps it would serve me well to go to the vineyard on the island which the wine cask probably came from.  
I did meet an interesting old salt named Gibbs. He was sitting in a pigsty and babbling on and on about some man named Jack's compass and how the maelstrom was too bad, they shouldn't go in there. One of the women near me said he'd been sitting there for months, supposedly reliving some episode in his past. All of a sudden Gibbs looks up at me in all my breeched, long-red-haired, bead-adorned glory and says: "Jack? When did you dye your hair?" Then someone makes a noise with a pot and pan a few yards away and Gibbs looks over and yells at them to "stop that racket and open the sails like Cap'n Jack said." I was wisely advised by Rolf to take that moment to slowly edge away. "Madmen, Fraulein," Rolf said. "Are to be, in general, avoided."  
Otherwise the search for someone who might know something about my origins was fruitless. I did meet some Jamaican maroon women who braided some beads into my hair. I always did like that sort of primeval adornment.  
Dinner was bread, brandy, and oranges, and infinitely better than hard tack and rum.

July 13, 1796

I asked Rolf this morning if he knew anything about my origins. He sighed and said something in German that sounded a bit like "I hate puppies."  
Completing my male attire, I bought a leather tricorn hat, rather plain. I think I shall put a feather in it once I find a good one. My fingernails have become extraordinarily dirty in a very short time, so I also bought a small knife with which to clean them. Rolf fainted again when he saw this, so I ordered him to rest in the room at the inn for the rest of the day, and he begrudgingly obliged.  
Upon entering a tavern named "The Salty Wench", I happened upon a gray-haired figure, legs stretched out on the table, tricorn hat over his face. He pushed up the brim of his hat a bit. "I know those feet," he said in a slightly drunk-sounding voice. He took his hat off his bandannaed head. "Scarlet?"  
I chuckled. "Well, at least you know your hair colors."  
"I mean, are you? Scarlet, that is?" His beard was in two braids with beads on the end, and his grizzled hair was as copious as it must have been in younger days.  
"Margaret Blackcrowe." I extended my hand cautiously.  
He let out a sigh of relief. "Good. You're not going to slap me." He firmly shook my hand. "Captain Jack Sparrow. Funny how I keep meeting people with bird names. The governor of Port Royal's daughter's last name was Swann."  
"Heh. Birds of a feather do stick together, as my mum said." I plonked down on the chair, putting my feet up on the table.  
"Something to drink?"  
"Rum."  
"Ah, yes. My favorite. Charlie! Rum!"  
"We're out, Jack. Again."  
Jack put his hand on his forehead and sighed. "Why is the rum ALWAYS gone?"

I shrugged. "It's all right. I wasn't that thirsty anyways."  
My partner took a dirty coin out of his pocket. "You look awfully fine to be hanging around an old scallywag like me."  
"How could you tell?"  
"Your hands. They're smooth as the inside of an oyster. Only a fine lady could have such hands, whether her nails are dirty or not."  
I blushed.  
"So, Margaret dear. Why _exactly_ have you come to Tortuga?"  
Finally, we came to the heart of the matter. "You'll think I got it out of a novel."  
"Darling, I don't much read novels. They're more feminine fare. Try me."  
I let out a breath. "I'm looking for my parents."  
Jack looked off into space for a moment. "Aaah... I see. Are you sure you don't know anybody named Scarlet?"  
"That's just a nickname the boys used to tease me with back home. Why?"  
"Oh, it's only a girl I used to know. The last time I saw her was about eighteen years ago, and her belly was enormous."  
For a second I thought I was onto something. Then I dismissed it. This "Scarlet" sounded like a disreputable creature. I was sure there were _other_ redheaded women on the island who could be my mother.  
I _hoped_ there were other redheaded women on the island who could be my mother.  
I walked around with Jack all day, getting introduced to some of his acquaintances and paying off some of his more paltry debts. Finally we parted at the inn, after Madame Hapney slapped him across the face.  
"Don't think I deserved that," he said, although it seemed as if getting struck was something he was quite used to.  
Rolf was waiting when I came upstairs with a stern look on his face.  
"Oh, yes, I know you don't approve of all this goings-on, my friend, but if I want to find out where I come from it must be done," I said, getting out of my frock coat.  
Rolf humphed. "Guten nacht, Fraulein."  
You know, you'd think he'd at least _try_ to be happy.

July 13

This morning I tramped over to the governmental building. It was very large, and most of its windows had been broken, but one ancient and grizzled clerk stood at the front desk, reading letters still being sent to the long-deceased governor of Tortuga.  
"Right this way, miss. Here are the birth records. Ah, 18 years ago. Here." He plonked a giant book down on a desk. "Have at it for as long as you please. You're the first person who hasn't come in here to raid and pillage since the founding of the place."  
I flipped through the book. "Margaret, Margaret..." My father's letter had told me that they took my name from a paper pinned to my chest, which also contained my date of birth, when they found me. My finger stopped on an entry far down on the hundredth page.

May the Third -- Name: Margaret Raven Pearl Granville -- Mother: Granville, Scarlet -- Father: Unknown -- Note: Mother professes Father to be Sparrow, Jack -- Acting Midwife: Zara Hapney

Well. You can imagine my surprise. These kinds of coincidences usually only occur in books. Yet here I was, sitting in Tortuga's dilapidated Hall of Records, reading the plain proof that my mother was a prostitute and my father was a pirate. Although I had suspected such a background, it was still a bit of a shock to see it in plain writing on paper.  
Immediately I went over to the Salty Wench to confront Jack.  
"Hello, Dad," I said, sitting down with a flagon of rum I'd ordered.  
"I suspected as much. You have my cheekbones. And your mum's..."  
"Scarlet Granville."  
"Interesting. I suppose she gave you a bird name in there somewhere?"  
"Raven. And Pearl."  
"Ah, yes. After my ship."  
"The _Pearl_?"  
"The _**Black**__ Pearl_."  
We were silent for a long time, just sipping our rum and looking sideways at each other.  
"I have to admit," I said. "The style choices alone should have clued me in at the first."  
"Where'd you get the beads?"  
"Just in the marketplace. Only sixpence."  
"You _paid_ for them? Are you sure you're my daughter?"

We talked for a while, he getting increasingly drunk as the minutes went by, and I remaining very sane, having about the same liquor tolerance as a rhinoceros's toenail.

I took my leave at about seven o'clock, returning to the inn in a daze. Dad had given me an offer to help him get back the Pearl from Hector Barbossa, with the help of some friends of his, Elizabeth Swann, Will Turner, and their son, Jack.

I told him I'd consider it. I wanted to see if I could find my mother before I went gallivanting over the seven seas in some dinghy with only a broken compass and a puzzle map to the Fountain of Youth.

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**A/N: Comment with any questions or observations and I'll try to answer them in the next chappie's Author's Note. :)**  



	2. The Second Jack

**A/N: Hope you enjoy Chapter 2! Sorry for the shift to third person in the middle of the story. R&R! **

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July 14 

My mother is dead. She died after giving birth to me, but not before she was able to tell Madame Hapney to deposit me on the doorstep of some well-to-do family. Madame Hapney told me that she was as heartless as the day was long before she had me. Somehow motherhood softened her, although she knew that in her line of work she could not tend to a child.

I didn't feel particularly sad. I didn't really know anything about my mother, apart from what Jack and the Madame had told me. I walked down the dock, a knapsack over my shoulder and Rolf at my side. I felt steadier than I ever had before, somehow surer of my future, more willing to leap into that abyss that is uncertainty. Rolf walked at my side like a block of ice, if blocks of ice could walk. He had been raised in a world of rigid class divisions, where menservants and fine ladies did not journey together, and fine ladies did not offer to help pirates. His steely gaze was fixed on the horizon, the blue ribbon on his short pigtail blowing in the breeze. I did feel bad about Rolf, how even though he was my father's most trusted valet he was never told about my origins, how I refused to include him in my search for my parents because I knew his sense of propriety would muddle things up. But his solid German sense of loyalty and friendship assured me that he would be with me always, though death may us part.

I helped Jack sneak up on a merchant ship whose crew had left to pursue ill-gotten fortune and debauchery, hiding clunky, clumsy Rolf in the bushes until we had thrown the previous captain overboard and checked the ship for leftover mates hiding in the shadows. When we were safely out of the harbor, Jack set to telling me about navigation and steering the ship. It was somewhat interesting, but I was waiting for him to teach me how to fence. Finally, after a lunch of salted meat and rum, he showed me. The merchant ship was supposed to have been selling weapons to soldiers in Port Royal, so there was a rather nice store of épées, shortswords, rapiers, and pistols aboard. My sword was light and elegantly tooled with black opal insets on the silver pappenheimer hilt—really more decorative than functional, but it served my purpose. We practiced thrusts, parries and ripostes until evening fell and my feet had memorized the footwork I needed to complete the swords' dance.

Jack sat down heavily on a barrel, his old hands shaking while my young hands steered the _Opal_'s mahogany wheel. The ship was rich an elegant, owned by a man with a monopoly on the Caribbean weapons trade. An awning covered the steering wheel and the entrance to the captain's cabin. When searching the ship, we found two passenger cabins with blood on the floor, presumably the cabins of ladies on the ship who had been murdered by the fleeing crew at Tortuga. We took all the dresses in the cabins down to the hold, since we planned to sell them at Port Royal. Besides the ones we planned to use ourselves, such as my rapier and two ladies' target pistols, we handicapped the weapons so they would be useless if anyone tried to commandeer the ship away from us.

"Margaret," Jack said. "I'm getting rather old. If I go to Hell before we get the _Pearl_…" He paused, looking up at the giant yellow moon. "I want you to do something for me."

"What, Dad? Send you to the bottom of the sea with a keg of rum and the corpse of a pretty girl?"

"Besides that. I want you to take control of the _Pearl_ for me. Throw Barbossa on some godforsaken island somewhere. Stick him with some cannibals or something. The crew are my comrades, they'll follow you if you show them some proof of my death. Take the _Opal_, too. Make a fleet of it."

"Then what?"

"Just do what pirates do, love. Just do what pirates do."

I grinned. "Of course, Dad. We birds of a feather must stick together."

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Soon the band of three reached Port Royal, still shining in all its glory twenty years after the devious Lord Cutler Beckett's attempt to control the seas. The only dilapidated building on the island was the governor's mansion, which had been closed up and never used again after Governor Swann's death. The town buzzed with a quiet ignorance, never even realizing that anything had changed. 

Jack Turner swept his boar's-hair brush over the canvas, forming the curves and spikes of a tall palm tree outside his window. The house he lived in with his mother was modest, yet somehow elegant, constructed in the pristine white colonial style so particular to the Caribbean.

Jack did not follow his forefathers' tradition of indulging in an honest trade such as blacksmithing or piracy. He was an artist, and therefore fundamentally dishonest, condemned by description of trade to hide his subjects' moles, pimples, and fat, to bring out only the beauty in everything, from the loveliest sunset to the most disgusting mud puddle. His mother was proud of him for being able to see the beauty in anything, but he seemed to lack his parents' spunk and courage and willingness to stick to anything to accomplish their goals. Without a consistent male role model, he had become quite withdrawn, unusually so even for a boy who saw his father only once every ten years. His grandfather, however, visited as often as he could, bringing messages from Will and presents from _The Flying Dutchman_. His mother had told him all the tales of daring and adventurous things that she and his father had done when they were younger. He knew about the marvelous Captain Jack Sparrow, the tricky Hector Barbossa, the wily Calypso, and the evil Lord Beckett. He painted them all as he saw them in his mind, and they were surprisingly close likenesses to the people they portrayed.

His current work was to be titled _Jack on Sea Turtles at Sunset_, featuring a scraggly-looking younger Jack steering a pair of sea turtles with a rope in a majestic pose much like that of a royal portrait.

"Jack," Elizabeth called. "I'm going down to the docks for half an hour. I've heard a friend of mine is waiting there. Don't move a muscle until I get back!" She tied a blue hat on over her golden-brown curls, tinged with gray at the roots after twenty years of waiting for Will, always waiting for Will. Yet her face was lineless, smoother than a marble block, the only lines of worry contained in her deep hazel eyes.

She held herself like a queen, sidestepping mud puddles and chickens running wild in the streets as she made her way toward the docks. As she looked around, she spied the _Opal_, and on its deck, Jack, who was arguing with the military's artillery master.

"I don't care about whether or not the stuff looks unserviceable, it's just as good as any you'll find anywhere," Jack said. The artillery master picked up a gun. "Except that one."

BANG! A shot from the gun severed three lines on the ship about six yards from where it was aimed. Jack cringed. Elizabeth grinned. That was good old Jack. She walked up on deck just as the artillery master was storming away.

"Jack, you old scoundrel!" Elizabeth called, hugging Jack tightly. "I didn't expect you here until Will came for his visit!"

"Yes, love, I know you're glad to have me, but I don't think you want to get your fine garments all filthy."

Elizabeth pulled away, a strange look on her face. "You wouldn't come here unless something was wrong, Jack."

"Oh, no, darling, nothing apart from the usual unpaid debts and the fact that I still haven't got my ship back." Jack pushed a pile of muskets off of a crate. "Please, sit." Elizabeth sat. Jack walked to the rail. "How's my young namesake?"

"Oh, he's fine. Quiet as ever, but for all intents and purposes just fine. He keeps asking when he's going to meet you, and, to be frank, Jack, I'm wondering when you're going to finally meet him as well."

"I just don't want him too attached to me. I do have an irresistible pull, you know." Jack turned and grinned. "Do you really want your only son gallivanting off over the high seas with me?"

"Oh, I don't think I would mind. Just as long as I could come, too."

"My thoughts exactly."

Margaret walked out on deck, the map to the Fountain of Youth held tightly in her hands. "Was that direction north northeast or..." She looked up and, seeing Elizabeth, bent her body low in a very genteel bow. "Wouldn't you like to introduce me, you old salt?"

"Yes, of course. Margaret, this is my friend Mrs. Elizabeth Turner, formerly Miss Elizabeth Swann. Elizabeth, this is my daughter, Margaret Raven Pearl Blackcrowe."

The two women shook hands. Elizabeth knew how to read people, and in Margaret's eyes there was great kindness, a strength and a weakness which the young lady would do well to conceal, lest she be taken advantage of. Margaret saw a face that loved unconditionally, a face that held a great worry and a great pain in its deep, limpid eyes.

"So, how is it that you have this scallywag for a father, Margaret?" Elizabeth asked, a merry smile coming over her face as the two walked the length of the deck, the older woman's hands folded demurely in front of her, the younger's stuffed petulantly into her deep pockets. Margaret began to tell Elizabeth the story of how she found her father, and when she was done, Elizabeth told the story of how she met Jack. After only a few minutes, the two had become very fond of each other, and their fundamentally tomboyish natures made them feel like kindred spirits. Needless to say, Jack was pleased that they weren't fighting, which would have been especially troublesome, considering the mission that he needed to undertake. Finding Will, and, later, the _Pearl_, would be hard enough without two females bickering all the time.

While walking through the streets of Port Royal, all the time drawing interested stares from the populace, Jack explained to Elizabeth what they needed to do. Elizabeth agreed almost immediately, but insisted that her son be taken along. "He needs an adventure. Soon he'll grow tired of just my talking about you and the _Pearl_ all the time and want to go places. Artists like him are often temperamental like that."

"He's an artist?" Margaret queried. "I do hope he's not a completely foppish dandy like some of the artists I've known." In fact, the only artists she had known were the ones who did her surrogate parents' portraits, extremely rich painters who liked nothing better than to spend the money they made from commissions to buy clothes. They possessed no innate sense of beauty whatsoever, preferring to depict their subjects with warts-and-all realism rather than the attempts at making them more beautiful that were the style of the day. It was no surprise that Margaret had a low opinion of artists in general.

"No, he dresses rather plainly and is quite quiet." Elizabeth was proud of her son's talent. "He loves to paint pictures of the stories I've told him about Jack and Davy Jones and Calypso. Right now he's working on one of Jack on the sea turtles."

"What sea...Oh, _those_ sea turtles, of course!" Jack said, narrowly avoiding a mistake. "They're not as slow as everybody thinks, you know."

Elizabeth rolled her eyes as she pushed open the door to her house. "Jack!" she called. "I'm home! And I've brought my friends! Why don't you come down and meet them?"

There was a quiet clinking as Jack put his brush in its jar. He walked delicately down the stairs, his stockinged feet making almost no sound on the usually creaky old wooden boards. He hugged Elizabeth. "Hello, Mother."

"Jack, I'd like you to meet Captain Jack Sparrow," Elizabeth said as her son shook hands with the pirate, "And his daughter, Margaret Blackcrowe." Jack paused for a moment before executing a deep bow towards Margaret. The young lady merely stuffed her hands in her pockets and looked around the room uncomfortably, tapping her leather-clad foot. He seemed like a nice lad, but she pitied his lack of style. Even the most quiet, secluded person in the world wouldn't have the gall to walk around the house without shoes or a shirt, whether it was over ninety degrees Farenheit outside or not. She wished Rolf was with her to teach the young man about decorum, instead of staying guard on the ship.

Jack wasn't sure if Margaret was really a girl or just a man with a long wig and a padded chest. She looked remarkably like her father in the getup she was wearing, down to her kohl-rimmed eyes. She didn't seem to be very original, but she would make a wonderful artistic subject. He felt much too exposed, and wished desperately for at least a waistcoat over his bare chest and slippers on his feet. Why did his mother have to bring a lady into the house? He felt something was going on that he wasn't aware of, and he stiffened and tensed as he stood up out of his bow.

Jack and Elizabeth looked warily at their progeny as the two gave each other piercing stares. For once, they longed for some undead pirates or a giant squid, if only to break the unbearable silence and give them all something to talk about. This could be a long, long journey.

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**A/N: Will Jack Turner and Margaret Blackcrowe ever grow to like each other? Will the foursome (five if you count Rolf) be able to find Will? Find out in the next chapter. Review, please!!!**


	3. A Commodore is Waxed

The next day, Jack and Elizabeth arrived at the _Opal _packed and ready. After being shown to his cabin, Jack sat in it and got out his things to paint, undisturbed by the rocking of the ship and the yells and movements up on deck. Margaret ran downstairs and opened Jack's cabin door just to see him beginning to mix a greenish-blue.

"What in the name of His Majesty are you _doing_?" she cried. Jack looked up innocently, palette knife poised in hand. "We need you on deck helping pull the anchor! Come _on_!" Margaret grabbed his arm, accidentally knocking the unpainted canvas on the floor drawing-side down. Jack looked sad. But Margaret paid no attention and just continued dragging him up the stairs and on deck.

By the time the _Opal_ was ready to make sail, several rows of militiamen had assembled on the docks, waiting for their commanding officer to tell them what to do. An arresting figure in an elaborately braided blue coat and other equally fine raiment boarded the ship, slapping a hand on Captain Jack's shoulder. He was tall, a by-the-rules sort of chap who cut no slack whatsoever to anyone under any circumstance. If his mother was sick in bed and dying, he'd have made her finish darning his socks even if rigor mortis set in.

"Sparrow," he said. "What are you doing in possession of a merchant vessel with specific orders to carry weapons here to Port Royal?"

Jack brushed the man's hand off of his shoulder and wheeled around. "I think a better question would be: why aren't _you_ in possession of a merchant vessel with specific orders to carry weapons here to Port Royal?" Jack looked the man up and down. "And who _are _you, anyway?"

"I am Commodore Geoffrey B. Knott, and I am ordering you to get off of this ship immediately!" Knott's wig quivered on his brow. If he had ever been seen without that wig, he would have looked terribly like a Roman general.

"Well, that's a bit of a problem, innit? Because I'm pretty sure that you can't order around people who aren't in the Navy."

"Have you forgotten, Sparrow?" Knott spat the name out as if it was a terribly bad-tasting licorice snap. "You're a privateer. You're under command of the King himself, and therefore, under _my_ command."

Jack rummaged around inside his shirt, finally taking out a bundle of papers wrapped in a leather envelope. He ripped out the papers and tore them in half. "Not anymore, Knotty." He grinned. "You're not the boss of me!"

Knott smiled back. "Oh, no?" He held up one of Jack's wrists, now encased in a shackle. He closed the other ring around Jack's free wrist and pushed him toward two particularly large soldiers. "Take him away."

Elizabeth, Jack, and Margaret watched the pirate be escorted away. Knott turned towards them. "I see he's been kidnapping women and young men as well. All the more reason he should go to the gallows." He turned on his heel and began to walk primly away. Soon, he felt cold steel at his neck. He laughed. "Oh, I see." He spoke arrogantly to Elizabeth and Margaret. "Has he captured your affections, as well?"

"Oh, please." Margaret said, scratching the Commodore's collarbone so she drew blood. "I'm not one for committing incest."

"You are a disgusting, evil man, Geoffrey Knott," Elizabeth said, giving him her best fighter's face. "It's you who should hang."

Jack just stood by, wondering whether the Commodore's waistcoat was more of a light cerulean or a powder blue.

"Well, your daddy isn't going to help you now, little girl," Knott spat in Margaret's direction. Suddenly, his voice became like honey. "Why do you have to choose a life of grime and toil? I could give you fine dresses, jewelry, a good home…"

"None of which I want. For eighteen years I had those things and I was ashamed of them. I was ashamed of how I sat on my riches while my serving maids had three or more children starving to death because my surrogate parents didn't have the decency to pay them more than one would pay a trained dog to do a trick for you. I was ashamed of how we joked and made fun of the Negroes in the fields while the skin on their backs was breaking open from the floggings they were given. I never really wanted any of that. And I don't want it now." Margaret pressed the flat of the blade against Knott's Adam's apple, forcing him to cough and choke. "Besides, what would I want a crusty thirty-year-old man like you for, anyway? Got a bald spot under that wig of yours?"

The Commodore turned a bright red. This girl was just as bad as her father. He shifted his eyes over to his men, trying to catch their eye that he might get them to put the girl in shackles, but Margaret caught him first. Forcefully, she placed her free hand behind his back and walked him calmly onto the dock.

"Hold this, will you, Elizabeth dear?" Elizabeth took hold of the sword and kept it dangerously close to slitting Knott's jugular. Margaret took a small piece of wood out of her pocket and started a flame on it. She seized Knott's hand and took out a stick of blue sealing wax. Carefully, she dripped four drops onto the Commodore's hand. He clenched his jaw. He would not let his men see him cry out in pain. Margaret then stamped one of her rings into the quickly drying wax.

"Just a little something to remember us by." She took hold of the sword once again and held it while Elizabeth slipped the copy of the shackle keys off of Knott's belt and freed Jack. She then began to look for her son, who in all the excitement had slipped away to begin his painting over again.

"Thank you, sir," said Jack, "for your wonderful hospitality. But, I'm afraid we must take our leave now." The Commodore was about to yell something back when Margaret flipped him around and pushed him into the water. Knott's men gathered around the spot where their leader had fallen—not a one of them could swim, and the Commodore was too weighed down to swim up on his own. The pirate pair scurried back on deck, cut all the lines inhibiting their escape, and set sail, leaving the befuddled soldiers trying to figure out how to save their leader.

When they were safely out of the harbor, Jack and Margaret laughed until their sides split. "Maggie, dear girl, you truly do take after me. Though that wax bit was rather like your mother, if I do recall." Jack said. "She once did that to a woman whose marriage she'd broken up. The old bag stomped up to her, all furious-like, and she just stood there and took all her insults. Then she stamped her seal on her, said 'here's something to remember me by' and walked off, rather like a queen."

"What was she like, my mum?" Margaret asked, breaking off a piece of tack from a crate she'd found earlier.

"I didn't really know her that well. She was just good fun to be with. Though, just before she died, probably because of you, she started refusing to see me. It didn't really matter, though. By that time I'd started searching for the Fountain of Youth. And I'd met a lovely Spanish lady over in Hispaniola."

Elizabeth searched all over the ship before she finally found her son in his room, painting. "Jack," she said. He never even looked up. "Jack, we need to talk about something…"

"What is it, mother? I'm listening." He formed the curve of a cheek with his brush.

"Jack, would you please stop and sit down and look at me?" Elizabeth implored. The brush stopped, reluctantly, in the middle of a long lock of hair. Jack turned and sat on his painter's stool, arms folded across his chest.

"That's better." He looked so much like his father when he sat like that. "Jack, this is not a recreational cruise. You can't stay in here and paint all day. We need you out on deck, helping."

"Why are we here, mother? Why do _we_ have to help out Jack and his ridiculous daughter? Haven't you helped him enough?"

"Jack, I've been on almost every adventure he's ever had. And I've saved him several times. Who knows what might have happened if your father and I weren't there? Which is precisely the reason we're going to find your father—to help Jack. And because friends don't desert friends. At least your father and I don't."

Rolf sat amongst the twisted coils of rope in the hold. The Herr would not approve of this. Not at all. It simply wasn't Done. The young Fraulein should be mourning the Herr, not finding a different father! A rat skittered by his feet, and he squeaked softly. Vermin! He was hiding with vermin! He, Rolf, a respectable man who once wore fine linen doublets and embroidered stockings, was now adorned with a rough wool coat and no socks or shoes at all and was hiding with VERMIN. Rolf said a prayer to the Lord in Heaven that they would not eat him. He thought of his sweetheart, the lovely girl who he left behind when the young Fraulein took him with her on her awful trip. Oh, how he missed her… But reminiscing would not do. He heard the waves sloshing against the side of the ship much more forcefully now. They must be out of the harbor. Ruthlessly fending off a rat trying to nibble his toe, Rolf made his way up on deck to smell fresh air once again.


End file.
